Life, family and unshakeable faith

Even at Christmas time, when many of us are celebrating, there are those who are doing it tough and for whom, Christmas is a difficult time.

The speed of communication these days will not allow us to ignore or be ignorant of the pain and hurt that is in our world.

Where is God in all this tragedy and heartache, in the brokenness of life, sickness and suffering?

Why do bad things happen?

We often default to cliché answers in response to these large, uncomfortable questions. Some common ones include:

It must be God’s will

God knows best

Everything happens for a reason

God is teaching us something

We are being tested

We are being punished

God won’t give us more than we can bear

I too have heard myself giving some of these answers over years of supporting others going through hardship.

The problem with these responses is that when there is no rhyme or reason to hardship, we are left high and dry, with little comfort in our present-day pain. When our circumstances do feel more than we can bear, we could become disheartened in our suffering.

What’s more, they appear to be conditional on our performance, in that once we learn the lesson, or once we pass the test, the trial will end. Too many times, this is not the case.

When any of these responses are given in isolation or as the universal answer to all suffering – they may only distance us from God at the place of our tragedy, suffering, sickness and heartache.

These answers can leave us blaming ourselves, feeling guilt, or open to manipulation to perform one way or another.

Instead, the very nature of Christ and His message is grace, not blame, guilt or manipulation. Unlike Karma, the goods news of the gospel is that we don’t get what we deserve!

Psalm 46:1 says:God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in trouble.

And Psalm 121:1-2 says:

I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

Instead of asking “WHY” trouble, David asks, “WHERE” does my help come?

Because David had a relationship with God, he turned to God as his refuge and strength. Relationship enables us to focus on where our help is found and in turn causes us to live through our suffering.

This tells me that when suffering happens, you and I have a choice to make.

Will we deny it, pretend it doesn’t exist, fake it, isolate ourselves, stay numb, get angry, play the blame game or will we seek God’s help and choose to LIVE through it?

Here’s a few thoughts on how we can live through pain and suffering:

1. With God’s help

God sends help in the form of others. People need consolation more than explanation when going through tragedy.

Caring and loving people can cause us to endure pain longer, better, and more courageously than if we were alone.

2. By redeeming the tragedy

Many bad things that happen to us do not have meaning attached to them, they do not happen for any good reason which would cause us to accept them willingly. BUT we can give them meaning! We can impose meaning to them.

Don’t ask, why did this happen? Or, what did I do to deserve this? A better question is, now that this has happened to me, what am I going to do about it?

Why not ask, how can I take what was meant for evil and turn it around for good?

3. By having an eternal perspective

Romans 8:18 says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”

You cannot remove the suffering you face now from the glory that is yours in the future.

If you could put all the difficulties of your life on one side of the scale, and the glory that will someday be revealed to you through Christ on the other side of the scale, the glory would be so much heavier than your present sufferings.

Glory actually has the meaning of being “the weight of Gods presence”.

4. By living with the presence of Jesus

I love the message and reality of Christmas; it’s about Jesus with us.

He is with us in each and every circumstance of life. He promised He would never leave us. When we are weak, Jesus is our strength. When we are confused, Jesus is our comfort. When we are fearful, Jesus is our peace. When we are sick, Jesus is our healer.

God loves you, He sees what you are going through and He cares – let Him be your help today.

Phil

P.s. Here are a few photos of our family celebrating Christmas this past week! I trust you are having a wonderful time with friends and family.

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19 thoughts on “Is “why” the question?”

I love that you use questions to deal with this. That’s what God used to help Adam and Eve deal with their change in circumstances too. And the first one was “WHERE?” Hiding from God’s presence was never going to help the situation…. I’m pretty sure that will be the first question asked when you get your EXIT visa 🙂

Hi Phil, that is a super sermon of real truth; as always!!! I will definitely show it to Ros tomorrow when she gets back from Cobram. It has been a rough Christmas for her with her sister getting progressively worse with bowel cancer ending up in admission to Albury hospital today – very sad indeed. We are thinking of you guys. It is wonderful to see your beautiful family pics – brings a real smile to my face. Lots of love to you Lenore, Rebecca, Shannon, Jess, Kaiden and puppy… Marty Kirk xxx

I love it Phil, that is where I have come to with my CMT, and my daughters sicknesses and with my grandsons autism and the many who I see suffering around me, so much suffering but yet where God is there IS comfort and there IS hope, as long as our eyes are on Him, keep up the sharing, because it helps us to keep our focus on the God of glory and we can then share this blog to others who suffer Bless you 🙂

You hit the nail on the head when you shared on redeeming the tragedy. The point has much more impact coming from someone who is actually going through it not just talking about the tragedy in the 3rd person. Again to reiterate on a point I made last time, you indeed are a courageous and strong man who has an unshakeable faith in God. These present circumstances will change, and in time the glory of God will be revealed. You have a beautiful family surrounding to encourage and bless you along your journey. Thank you again for opening up your heart and giving us a chance
to reflect on what truly counts –
relationship and intimacy with Father God.

Love to you and Lenore–miss you all see in you in February! You write about difficult truths with gentleness and grace. As ever, your story is an inspiration. Awesome. Looks like Christmas was good fun too.

Hi Phil
Love this blog mate and feel very encouraged as I read it today.
Its been a tough time for us having responded to God’s leading to hand our Church over to another Pastor for the sake of the Kingdom, but I’ve lived by the understanding that there is always someone worse off than me in this world and there always is.
Some may be tempted to say, “oh he fell from grace”, no sir, I have fallen right into the arms of Grace and He is comforting and guiding me through this time of refreshing.
Great days are ahead for us all.
Thanks for your fantastic example and encouragement Phil.
Love to you and the family
Rod